Mayor's Community Grants Programme
What is the Mayor's Community Grants Programme?
The council’s vision is to support and invest in a thriving and diverse voluntary and community sector to help it improve the lives of residents.
The Mayor’s Community Grants Programme is providing £11.96m of funding over the course of the programme.
This equals an annual allocation of £3.5 million for voluntary and community sector. This is an increase of £800,000 per year on the previous Local Community Fund.
The funding is for three years and five months. The projects we’ve funded started on 1 November 2023 and will finish on 31 March 2027.
What projects have we funded?
The Mayor's Community Grants Programme supports the delivery of the council’s priorities set out in the Strategic Plan 2022-26.
The programme consists of five themes:
- Tackling the cost-of-living
- Accelerating education
- Culture, jobs, business and skills
- Investing in public services
- Empower communities and fight crime
These themes have been broken down into nine schemes
- Theme 1 Scheme A Tackling the cost-of-living
- Theme 2 Scheme A Education Attainment and Development of Children and Young People
- Theme 2 Scheme B Lifelong Learning
- Theme 3 Scheme A Employment and Skills Opportunities for Socially Excluded Residents
- Theme 3 Scheme B Sports, Local Culture and Heritage
- Theme 4 Scheme A – Physical and Mental Health Wellbeing of Older People
- Theme 4 Scheme B – Physical and Mental Health of Residents
- Theme 5 Scheme A – Inequalities Experienced by People and Communities
- Theme 5 Scheme B – Community Safety
We have awarded funding to a range of different services and organisations ensuring that all sections of the community benefit.
The council has funded 86 organisations, including consortium members, to deliver 110 projects. This is a significant increase from the 50 projects from 38 organisations which were funded through the Local Community Fund.
View the Award Report including the full list of the projects we have funded.
How were decisions made?
Awards were made following a fair and transparent process, including an external audit of the assessment process. More details are set out in the grants award report.
Organisations submitted an organisation application and project application. Project applications were only assessed if the organisation passed the organisation assessment.
Applications were then assessed by a team of trained assessors, using criteria to provide scores.
Recommendations on which organisations to fund were based on
- how they scored
- how they met the needs of the theme, schemes and priorities
- equalities considerations
- geographic spread.
The Chief Executive made the decision on grant awards under decision-making powers delegated from Cabinet.
What other funding sources does the council have for the voluntary and community sector?
The council has launched its Small Grants Programme in December 2023. The programme will provide £800,000 of annual grant funding between November 2023 and March 2027.
The council also has an Emergency Fund to support voluntary and community sector organisation who are at risk of closing.
For more information visit the community grant information page.
The council provides information on external funding through our newsletter and our external funding page.
Get in touch
If you have a question please contact the council’s Voluntary and Community Sector Team by emailing vcs@towerhamlets.gov.uk.
The council publishes a Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) monthly newsletter. It's full of the latest news and information about and relating to Tower Hamlets' diverse and thriving voluntary and community sector.
It includes information on council policy and strategy relating to the VCS and on initiatives and strategies of interest to the VCS. Sign up to the Voluntary and Community Sector newsletter.